


cantabile

by llanfaircat



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Magic, Gen, music ficlets, this will probably become a normal ficlet collection rip, will add characters/pairings as i go
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-05-14
Packaged: 2018-05-17 09:41:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 1,065
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5864374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llanfaircat/pseuds/llanfaircat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of unconnected ficlets on the characters inspired by various songs. All song titles are included in the work somewhere, and are from Love Live!.</p><p>ch. 3: Magic AU—Nico and Eli battle it out in a stadium. Unfortunately, a third party intervenes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. decrescendo

She’s sitting at the top of her roof, and the world before her eyes seems too vast — too new, as if a sudden darkness was threatening to smother the light coming from her brightly-lit house. She glances down and closes her eyes as the wind blows harshly against her face. She’s not sure about why she’s doing this. When she’d climbed out from her window a few minutes earlier, she had convinced herself that she was getting used to being in solitude. But that evidently isn’t right.

Nor is it working.

Her job is to inspire and motivate — to be a leader. A pillar of strength who could be relied on when bad things happened. But she knows that she can’t do any of that. Not anymore.

She looks down, again, at the letter she’s received. It’s inviting her to go to a musical college abroad to study composition and more deeply explore what she’s been a part of since her sophomore year in high school.

It’s, of course, _only_ addressed to her.

Her hands clench the paper tightly as she stares blankly at the silent night sky. She’s always known that she’d have to stop fooling around someday, and here was the proof. And this time, she can’t be selfish. She was able to make Kotori stay with her, but she can’t turn this down. Because she’s growing up, and she's not good at anything else.

No matter how much she hopes, the past can’t become the future.

_Someday of my life...I won’t be with them anymore._


	2. con brio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Umi reminisces upon the past.

The night is beautiful, Umi notes as she stares up into the inky blue sky dotted by small white spots. Each star twinkles merrily as if they’re smiling down at the earth, and she can’t help but offer a tiny grin of her own as she leans over the edge of her balcony to look out at the vast expanse of color spread out below her. Of course, this moment of relaxation doesn’t mean she’ll be loosening up in her exercises at all. Today had been a great day of practice, but their next live is coming up soon. She’ll definitely have to pick up her pace, since Honoka never really does. 

Although Honoka truly is  _ something _ .

Closing her eyes, she allows the memories to overtake her again. Even if she yells at Honoka a lot, both Honoka and Kotori had stuck by her side since their first day of meeting. Umi remembers back when she had been such a shy person, hiding her face behind anything she could find, and laughs a little upon remembering. She knows she still has problems in this front, but ever since becoming a school idol, she’s been slowly conquering her fears. She supposes Honoka’s good at this kind of thing —  pushing her friends forward into the future. 

There’s still a good portion of the school year left, and they haven’t actually been school idols for that long, but they’ve met so many people already. Eli, Nozomi, Nico, Hanayo, Rin, Maki, and all of their supporters and friends (even the alpacas, in hindsight); everyone had been so good to them. They’d had problems at first, but eventually, they became wounds that healed. 

Umi can’t help but quirk a grin now. Kotori had been right; post-shower thoughts were nice. As she turns to return into the soft glow of her room, Umi silently thanks everyone for taking each others’ wrists and flying together into heights that they would have never known they’d reach, had they not met. For helping each other advance into the bright tomorrow.


	3. accelerando

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> sudden random fight scene!!! + magic au, kind of

As the crowd screams in terror and elation, Nico races up into the air, swinging her staff around twice before connecting solidly with her opponent, who brandishes her weapon instantly to defend herself with. The contact is very intense, and out of reflex she recoils, but she recovers quickly and sprints forward again to exchange quick blows with her foe, twisting and stepping through the air in an attempt to trip the other up. Eli grins in exhaustion as she jams her own staff against Nico’s, whispering words filled with adrenaline.

“I’m nowhere near done with you,” she hisses, before jumping backwards further into the sky to float, perfectly parallel against the elaborately decorated walls that rise up beside her. Glancing at them as she catches her breath, Nico has an idea and smirks. Eli notices and tenses noticeably, gripping her staff more tightly. But she doesn’t seem to recognize why Nico’s doing that. Which is good for her.

The black-haired girl takes a deep breath before slowly collecting magic beneath her feet and darting forward in an explosive burst, arriving at her destination so quickly that she seems to disappear. Eli’s shocked, understandably, and Nico gives her a troll grin as she throws a blast of magic at her. While she’s distracted, Nico focuses on the walls, manipulating her magic to carefully take down the decorations. Then she hurls at least ten banners at Eli.

Eli, who’s only just looking up, has barely a second to react. The flags wrap around her almost gleefully as Nico continues directing them with a mischievous grin on her face. Everything’s going so swimmingly.

But she doesn’t notice that something’s a little fishy until someone whispers _“Satan”_ behind her back and she immediately stiffens, glaring backwards at whoever dared give her such a horrifying nickname. A brief flash of red, and Nico suddenly finds herself falling. _What the fuck just happened._

She answers herself only a moment later. Squinting slightly, she sees Maki, both arms extended with two poles reaching out to the outside. One of them is glowing with fiery energy, and Nico briefly glimpses its threads, which connect to the banners that caused Eli’s humiliating defeat. The other one is pointed, with terrifying resolve, at Nico.

Within three seconds and a flash of light, the fight’s over. Out of good sport, Maki untangles her two comrades from her utility attack, but marches off with both floating behind her, declaring to the judges that none of these idiots are going to be getting anything other than a tie. With psychic fire burning in her eyes, the panel can’t refuse. They let her do as she wishes without another word.

The next day, Eli refuses to come out of her tent and Nico is bedridden. Maki just whistles.

**Author's Note:**

> feel free to suggest songs/request things, if you'd like! hopefully my muse will revive itself in time to write something for that c:


End file.
